Bridge of Clay

She went to his boots to loosen them, and now he screamed in pain.

The sun flopped down and swallowed him.

* * *

—

In the hospital, a few days later, a doctor came in on his rounds.

He shook the boys’ hands.

He ruffled Carey’s hair:

A tangled, boyish auburn thing.

The light was collarbone-white.

After he’d checked on Ted’s progress, the doctor looked amiably at the children.

“And what are you three going to be when you grow up?” he asked, but the boys didn’t even get a word in—for it was Carey who looked, it was Carey who grinned, as she squinted through the glare in the window. She pointed, casually over, at her roughed-up trampled-down dad, and already she was on her way:

To here and Clay, and Archer Street.

She said, “I’m gonna be just like him.”

So this is where I washed up—in the trees—on the day beyond Cootamundra.

I stood there, alone in the eucalypts, my feet amongst the bark.

The long belt of sun in front of me.

I heard that single note, and for now I couldn’t move. There was music from out of his radio, which meant he didn’t know.

* * *

—

I watched them in the riverbed.

I can’t even tell you how long—and the bridge, even in pieces, was more beautiful than I could believe.

The arches were going to be glorious.

The curvature of stone.

Just like Pont du Gard, there wouldn’t be any mortar; it was fit to exactness and form. It glowed in the open like a church.

I could tell by the way he leaned on it, too, and ran his hand across.

How he spoke to it and fastened it; and fashioned and stood alongside it:

That bridge was made of him.

* * *

—

But by then I had to commit to it.